This is what happened on my next attempt on a HRI pizza. All didn’t go well.

I put the dough ball between pieces of cut wax paper like my mother does when she rolls out her pie crust recipe. I rolled until the skin was 13”, then docked the dough. The dough was easy to roll out. I kept the wax paper on the dough and set it beside my oven that was turned on and let the dough proof, or temper for 20 minutes (I put the waxed papered dough on the disk, so as not to try and disturb it when I was moving it). I didn’t let the skin temper in the small dough ball bake test. It can be seen after the temper time how much the dough rose on the one photo. When I went to remove the skin from between the wax papers the dough wanted to stick some and then I had a problem trying to move the skin to the disk. I think when I try this again, I won’t keep the skin in between the wax papers when trying to proof, or temper the skin. The skin then wanted to fold over some when moving it, so I know my TF wasn’t right. I also saw then there might be a sticking problem on the disk while I tried to arrange the skin on the disk the best I could. I tried to flute the edges of the skin the best I could at about one 1 inch so the finished skin would be 12”. The edges did stay up while being fluted.

The dressings weights I used were 4.5 ounces of the Classico sauce I used last week, 10 ounces of the Guernsey’s LMPS mozzarella and 14 slices of my regular pepperoni which weighed 1.2 ounces.

The skin was pre-baked for 15 minutes. I then removed the pre-baked skin from the oven still on the disk and dressed it. I saw then that some dough has gotten caught in the holes of the disk but didn’t want to try and move the pre-baked skin at that point.

When I tried to remove the pizza off of the disk there was a sticking issue, and the one end part of the pizza split.

There looked like there were some layers, but not enough in the crust in my opinion. The edge rims were flaky though and the pizza did taste good in my opinion. The bottom crust did brown okay this time.

wow!! looks really yummy norma!!! did you find layers like in your small crust test? looks quite airy with a nice brown thin crunch layer on the bottom! good job Norma!! did you like the bite and or mouth feel? thanks for all your hard work on this!!!

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"My Doctor says I swallow a lot of aggression. Along with a lot of pizzas!!"

Norma, I have to say the second version looks much more bready compared to the first. Aside from dressings, is the only real difference that you allowed the second version to proof longer? would you have achieved the same flakiness if you had put dressings on the first attempt?

To try and answer all your posts in one post it might be easier for me, so that is what I will try to do. If there are any questions after this post, anyone can ask.

There appeared to be some layers in my small crust test. It also had a nice crunch on the bottom crust. I did like the mouth feel of the small crust test.

I think I am going to try the same hydration as I did in this attempt the next time. I have been thinking it over while I was at my mother’s home tonight and I sure don’t know, but what I think might have been some of the things I did wrong was keep the wax paper on the skin. I think I should have tried to roll the dough out, maybe with a little bit of flour, then docked it and left it temper. It seemed to me that while the skin was tempering between the wax papers it became a lot moister and that might have caused my sticking issues. I don’t want to change anything until I do another test with the same amounts of everything. I think it was my errors that caused what went wrong with this attempt. As I posted before, when I went to take the skin out of between the wax papers the skin wanted to fold and seemed quite extensible. The dough almost seemed like it might have been fermented too much too, but I really don’t know. The mess of trying to straighten the skin out on the screen after it folded over and stuck together was a big issue. Until I had the skin straightened out the best I could on the disk I guess I basically altered the chemistry of the temper time of the skin. I also might try a cold ferment the next time instead of trying to room temperature ferment the dough. There really wasn’t any flakiness in the center of the second crust, but the undressed crust did have some flakiness. I also think I used to much of the skin to form the fluted edges. I really don’t know if I would have achieved the same flakiness on the first test dough if dressing were added, but think there might have been because the crust was already set. I think there are tricks that have to be learned with trying to make this dough.

If anyone thinks they know what I did wrong, or has suggestions as what to try the next time they can let me know. I am still pondering what I did wrong.

Lol, Bob I needed those X-ray specs to be able to know what was going on with my dough and skin.

Thanks so much Norma! As an engineer, I am impressed with your experiments and your limiting of variables! You are generatingv a ot of good data, and stimulating a lot of thought about this pizza crust!

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"My Doctor says I swallow a lot of aggression. Along with a lot of pizzas!!"

Thanks so much Norma! As an engineer, I am impressed with your experiments and your limiting of variables! You are generatingv a ot of good data, and stimulating a lot of thought about this pizza crust!

mrmojo1,

I didn’t know you were an engineer. I think I have learned from all the experiments I have done here on the forum that if too many variables are changed at one time, then you can never figure out what went wrong.

I am thinking about just pre-baking a crust to see what the results would be using the same formulation that was used in my last attempt, but changing my methods of using the wax paper. I am now just trying to decide if a smaller crust would give me different results when trying that method, but really don’t think that would alter anything, since HRI does make smaller pizzas too. I don’t know if I made a dough the same size then split in two and tried to roll it with flour and maybe also tried to hand stretch the dough if that would help me to decide if one of those methods might work or not. It is a never ending process to be able to understand everything about different styles of pizzas. I know since I have been working on Detroit style pizzas that the high hydration dough when tempered does become very sticky, but the dough isn’t right out of the fridge. I am thinking along the lines of that also might have been the case of my skin in the last attempt after the temper period between the wax papers. When I first rolled out the dough I think I could have stretch it by hand, but don’t know since I didn’t try that method. My bakes times could have been off too, or maybe I didn‘t mix the dough right either. There are too many variables even to think about.

If anyone thinks they know what I did wrong, or has suggestions as what to try the next time they can let me know. I am still pondering what I did wrong.

Norma,

I don't want to say that what you did was "wrong" but I do want to say that I think you mixed apples with oranges with your latest experiment. As a result, I think you created a new and different type of pizza, even though it had some of the characteristics of an HRI pizza.

I think where you veered off of the path was when you decided to proof the skin. That is not something that I have seen done for an HRI pizza that is based on an ambient temperature fermented dough. And the only time that I have seen HRI use an ambient temperature fermented dough is to make frozen pizzas. As previously discussed, and as noted in the articles I cited in Reply 331 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6112.msg242613.html#msg242613, that was true back in 1996 (the date of one of the early articles on HRI's frozen pizza business) and is no doubt true today. Where HRI does proof its skins is in its pizzerias, but it is only after the skins have gone through the hot presses. In its frozen pizza operations, the skins that come out of the dough presses march on inexorably from the dough presses to be pre-baked, dressed, further baked, and frozen.

In your case, should you decide to make another room-temperature fermented dough that is to be true to the methods used by HRI to make its frozen pizzas, you would make your dough, let it proof/ferment at room temperature, dip the dough ball into bench flour to minimize sticking, form the skin (with the fluted rim rather than the round rim of a frozen HRI pizza), dock the skin, pre-bake it (until a light brown), dress it, and finish baking. I think you will also discover that the crust will remain fairly light in color thoughout the entire process. That is because the flour that HRI is using is likely to be an all-purpose flour, or something similar in protein content, and there is no sugar added to the dough, and the fermentation of the dough is too short to allow the enzymes to convert the starch to sufficient natural sugars to contribute to final crust coloration.

If, instead, you elect to make a cold fermented dough, as HRI does for its pizzeria dough balls, you can use the same dough formulation, let the dough cold ferment for anywhere from 12 hours to three days (based on what HRI has said on this point), temper the dough at room temperature when ready to use it, form a skin with the fluted rim, dock it, pre-bake it until a light brown, dress it, and finish baking. You could use the step of proofing the skin for say, 15-20 minutes, as HRI does in its pizzerias, but you would have to pre-bake the skin for a very bried period of time (to simulate the application of heat by the hot dough press) to keep the skin from setting to the point where it cannot ferment or rise anymore. I think I would form the skin (with its fluted rim), dock it, pre-bake it until a light brown, dress it, and finish baking.

I also think that this is a case where it would help if you had a real HRI frozen pizza to hold in your hot little hands and to examine. Since that may or may not happen for some time, this morning I went out in search of photos of a baked frozen HRI pizza to show you. As you might expect, when I went to the HRI Facebook page, I found several photos of the HRI frozen pizzas but the pizzas all looked like they were prepared by food stylists and in the studios of professional photographers. Apparently, it is not good for HRI's business to show crappy, amateurish photos of their pizzas.

I don't want to say that what you did was "wrong" but I do want to say that I think you mixed apples with oranges with your latest experiment. As a result, I think you created a new and different type of pizza, even though it had some of the characteristics of an HRI pizza.

I think where you veered off of the path was when you decided to proof the skin. That is not something that I have seen done for an HRI pizza that is based on an ambient temperature fermented dough. And the only time that I have seen HRI use an ambient temperature fermented dough is to make frozen pizzas. As previously discussed, and as noted in the articles I cited in Reply 331 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6112.msg242613.html#msg242613, that was true back in 1996 (the date of one of the early articles on HRI's frozen pizza business) and is no doubt true today. Where HRI does proof its skins is in its pizzerias, but it is only after the skins have gone through the hot presses. In its frozen pizza operations, the skins that come out of the dough presses march on inexorably from the dough presses to be pre-baked, dressed, further baked, and frozen.

In your case, should you decide to make another room-temperature fermented dough that is to be true to the methods used by HRI to make its frozen pizzas, you would make your dough, let it proof/ferment at room temperature, dip the dough ball into bench flour to minimize sticking, form the skin (with the fluted rim rather than the round rim of a frozen HRI pizza), dock the skin, pre-bake it (until a light brown), dress it, and finish baking. I think you will also discover that the crust will remain fairly light in color thoughout the entire process. That is because the flour that HRI is using is likely to be an all-purpose flour, or something similar in protein content, and there is no sugar added to the dough, and the fermentation of the dough is too short to allow the enzymes to convert the starch to sufficient natural sugars to contribute to final crust coloration.

If, instead, you elect to make a cold fermented dough, as HRI does for its pizzeria dough balls, you can use the same dough formulation, let the dough cold ferment for anywhere from 12 hours to three days (based on what HRI has said on this point), temper the dough at room temperature when ready to use it, form a skin with the fluted rim, dock it, pre-bake it until a light brown, dress it, and finish baking. You could use the step of proofing the skin for say, 15-20 minutes, as HRI does in its pizzerias, but you would have to pre-bake the skin for a very bried period of time (to simulate the application of heat by the hot dough press) to keep the skin from setting to the point where it cannot ferment or rise anymore. I think I would form the skin (with its fluted rim), dock it, pre-bake it until a light brown, dress it, and finish baking.

I also think that this is a case where it would help if you had a real HRI frozen pizza to hold in your hot little hands and to examine. Since that may or may not happen for some time, this morning I went out in search of photos of a baked frozen HRI pizza to show you. As you might expect, when I went to the HRI Facebook page, I found several photos of the HRI frozen pizzas but the pizzas all looked like they were prepared by food stylists and in the studios of professional photographers. Apparently, it is not good for HRI's business to show crappy, amateurish photos of their pizzas. However, by going to Google Images, I found an example of a baked frozen HRI pepperoni pizza that appears to be typical of what you might expect for an HRI baked frozen pizza, at http://daisyreviews.blogspot.com/2012/08/my-review-on-home-run-inn-pizza.html. If you make another pepperoni pizza, but with the fluted rim, and you don't overbake it, it might look more closely like the photo shown at http://www.hrichicagosbestpizza.com/website/images/spotlight/locations/westmont-03.jpg. That pizza also has sausage on it but I think you get the idea.

Peter

Peter,

I am known for messing stuff up for doing things like mixing apples with oranges.

I understand now since you posted that I shouldn’t have decided to proof the skin. I think I had to many things to think about and maybe that is why I messed-up with thinking about how HRI makes it frozen pizzas and also how HRI pizzerias make their pizzas.

I will use your suggestions to make another room-temperature fermented dough using methods used by HRI to make its frozen pizzas. I appreciate your help. Do you know how long I should try to room temperature ferment the dough with all of the yeast that is added? Maybe I will make another attempt tomorrow. I also wanted to ask you if when I figure out the formulation again, do I just put 12” in for the size of the pizza in the expanded dough calculation tool?

I sure don’t know how hot my hands are, but I sure would like to have a real HRI frozen pizza to be able to examine.

Just to let you know when I clicked on your link to Daisy’s Reviews, it said “Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist”. I had to use the Search This Blog feature and type in Home Run Inn Pizza and go from there to see that post. Your second link didn’t work for me. Thanks for doing the search for photos.

I will use your suggestions to make another room-temperature fermented dough using methods used by HRI to make its frozen pizzas. I appreciate your help. Do you know how long I should try to room temperature ferment the dough with all of the yeast that is added? Maybe I will make another attempt tomorrow. I also wanted to ask you if when I figure out the formulation again, do I just put 12” in for the size of the pizza in the expanded dough calculation tool?

Norma,

I would look for a doubling or tripling of the dough. The time for that to happen will depend on the room temperature where you let the dough rise.

And, yes, you should use 12" in the expanded dough calculating tool.

I don't know what happened to the two photos. When I found them again, they worked in the Preview but not after I posted. So, I deleted the text for those two photos.

I would look for a doubling or tripling of the dough. The time for that to happen will depend on the room temperature where you let the dough rise.

And, yes, you should use 12" in the expanded dough calculating tool.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for suggesting to look for a doubling or tripling of the dough if I try a room temperature ferment. I will use the poppy seed trick. I don’t think it will take very long for the dough to ferment to a doubling or tripling since a high percentage of yeast is used.